Brew-Weekend Re-cap.

Ok, so In know it's already Wednesday, but I'm just now getting around to posting about this past weekend.

As I said before, my plan was to bottle the stout on Friday, and then brew two batches on Sunday.
Well, I'm happy to say that both of these items were accomplished, right as scheduled! :-D

First, Friday.

Bottle-time went well.

This is an Oatmeal Cream Stout, and I decided to add cocoa-nibs to the secondary. I also added some raspberry extract to half of the batch (the smaller half, on the left).

I hope this wasn't a mistake, as the raspberry was very sweet and almost cough syrupy. We'll see over time if this mellows out. If I don't like it, maybe some of our friends will.



Next we fast forward to Sunday, Brew day!!

Since this was my first attempt at a lager, I was a little nervous that this would all go as planned. For the most part all went well. I had a little issue with my digital thermometer. The temp seemed to hit pretty quick for the mash, and about halfway through, I decided to check it against another thermometer that I knew was correct. 15 degrees off!! Oh no! So my mash that I thought was 151 was actually more like 136!! Fortunately I had some near boiling water ready for the sparge, so I added some of that and got it up to about 145 for the last half hour. I probably could have left it in for longer, but I had a deadline!



Time to boil, and as you can see I'm using a hop bag. I've never done this before, but hopefully this will make for a clearer beer. This first batch is a Schwarzbier, a German Dark Lager. And for the next batch I really want it to get as clear as possible.

Finished the boil, chilled nice and quick thanks to the wort chiller, and pitched the yeast at about 62 degrees. I forgot to do a hydrometer reading before I pitched so I did one right after. Will it make that much of a difference that soon? Anyhow, it read at 1.051 which I think is right at the range I was looking for.

Next, the Premium Light Lager.



Here's a pic of the mash. As you can see I'm using my analog meat thermometer now. Sorry I didn't get more pics, but I was pretty focused on making the beer!

Again, mash and boil all went well. Hit all the temps that I wanted to hit. The recipe for this calls for Halertau hops and the WLP840 American Lager Yeast. But I wanted to use Amarillo hops because I've never used them before, and a lot of IPA's and Pale Ales that I like use them, and the LHBS didn't have 840 so I substituted it with WLP802 Czech Budejovice Lager Yeast. I don't know what difference this will make, but it ain't going to taste like Bud!

This time I did throw in the hydro before I pitched and the reading was 1.070!! Can that be right?
I need to look over my grain bill again to see what happened there.

Anyhow, both brews are bubbling away happily in the fridge. I'll take a pic of that tonight and post soon.